Keeping up-to-date with the latest thinking and research in your chosen field is important for your career development, and as a member of the Cranfield alumni community, you can enjoy free access to the wide range of resources available through the Alumni Library Online (ALO).
Taking on board new ideas, continuing to develop your expertise and discovering opportunities to improve within your function can help you to progress in your career and contributes to your own personal sense of growth and job satisfaction. Staying informed with the latest industry developments can also help you to contribute to the overall success of your organisation by applying the latest thought-leadership to implement innovation and change.
Here are five ways that you can use your ALO to keep up-to-date in your field or industry:
- Got a specific publication in mind? Access the most recent issues of journals covering your subject area.
Using the ALO database, you can access full-text articles and papers free of charge.
- Find a range of materials relating to your area of interest
Perform a keyword search to access all of the available articles that relate to your subject area, and amend the date range to see what’s new.
- Browse open access journals
Visit the General Resources section of the ALO and check out the eJournals section.
- Discover the latest research
- Search CERES and CORD to see what Cranfield researchers have been doing.
- Use resources such as eTHOS and OpenDOAR to see UK and worldwide research in your area
- Set up journal alerts
There are several tools in the ALO that can provide you with regular journal alerts – this will usually be an email whenever a new issue of your chosen journal is published. These alerts won’t necessarily provide the full text of all the articles in the journal but they will keep you aware of what is being published. The best of these services is called JournalTOCs.
How to access JournalTOCs:
- Within the ALO, go into the Useful websites section
- Select ‘Keeping up to date’
- Select ‘JournalTOCs’
Why we like it:
JournalTOCs has a very broad coverage – there is something here for everyone. It also covers open access journals which you will be able to get full-text for. It currently covers over 33,000 journal titles, and nearly 16,000 of these are open access titles.
How to use it:
You can just search it whenever you want to, or if you register for a free account, you can set up alerts for:
- Newly added journals
- Most popular journals
To sign in – look for the link in the top right hand corner
Search for the title of your favourite journal and then…
- Tick in ‘Follow’ box
- Go to your account to right hand corner
- “Show your followed journals” to check it has been added
- If you change your mind, simply untick to unfollow!
Top Tip: You can also browse the Subject A-Z for ideas of what other titles you could follow.
Access the ALO today
Ready to get going? You can access the Alumni Library Online from your alumni portal.
Forgotten your portal login?
Contact the Alumni Relations and Development Office
T: +44 (0)1234 75456
E: alumni@cranfield.ac.uk
Any questions about the ALO service?
Email your library team and they will be happy to help you.
